Category: Nintendo

“Joel changed the course of history”.

We’ve got some sad news on the industry front – with a Miami Herald obituary confirming the former Rare director Joel Hochberg passed away earlier this week, aged 87. Joel lives on through his wife, children, grandchildren and extended family.

As highlighted by GamesIndustry.biz, he signed on with the Ultimate Play the Game and Rare founders Tim & Chris Stamper in 1986, overseeing the company’s business operations within the US, with a division based out of Miami, Florida. During this time he also held a position as the president of Rare’s coin machine company Rare Coin-It Inc.

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Note pad.

Nintendo has always been one for pushing the boat out with its hardware designs, and no more so is this the case than with its controllers. Yes, those of the NES and SNES were pretty conventional by today’s standards (though they were remarkably innovative at the time) but in the ensuing years, the Big N’s controllers have had us waving blocks above our heads, tapping chunky kidney-shaped keys, attaching and detaching buttoned bolt-ons, and even trying to work out how exactly these are meant to be played with only two hands.

Our point is, there’s a lot to choose from when it comes to finding the best Nintendo controller out there. There are so many different options, in fact — and so many different opinions — that attempting to find “the best” feels somewhat like an impossible task.

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Celebrating 10 years of meetups this August.

In the gaming industry, Nintendo sets itself apart not just with the quality of its games and its evergreen catalogue of classic characters, but also a focus on community. Whether through software that brings people of all ages together, hardware features like StreetPass, or the local multiplayer functionality baked into every single Switch console, Nintendo is particularly great at firing up positivity for gaming and giving like-minded fans cause to get together to play and celebrate the games they love. It’s why we’re here writing about them, and why you’re here reading about them. Various Nintendo-focused communities have formed around the world over the years and in the United Kingdom, Nintendo Players UK is the largest.

An independent ‘umbrella’ network of Nintendo fans, NPUK organises physical meetups for gamers in the UK and Ireland and is made up of 29 individual regional communities. Jen Griffiths is part of the NPUK committee and head administrator for this inclusive gaming hub, one which is fast approaching its ten-year milestone this August. “Our ethos,” Jen tells us via email, “is simply to provide free events in person that are inclusive and family-friendly spaces for Nintendo fans to meet and play games with each other.”

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Our not-so-final fantasies.

Who would have thought that in the run-up to the release of Tears of the Kingdom, we would have so much Switch news to talk about in the space of a week?

Nintendo was really firing on all cylinders this time around, as we got an official release date for Xenoblade Chronicles 3‘s final DLC, four new games added to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive NSO library (including an early action platformer from Game Freak) and a brand new Indie World showcase.

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Estimated to top $830+ million this weekend.

The Mario Movie is already the biggest video game adaptation ever and it seems it won’t be slowing down any time soon.

In the latest update, it’s now estimated Nintendo and Illumination’s animated movie will top $830+ million at the global box office by the end of this weekend (via Forbes) – with recent reports also suggesting it will not only reach the $1 billion mark but surpass it in the near future:

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“I can’t respond to everyone but thanks”.

After jumping through several hoops, Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp has finally launched on the Nintendo Switch. As exciting as it is for many fans of the series, it is perhaps even more exciting for the development team.

WayForward director James Montagna, who has worked alongside Nintendo on the “reimagined” version of the classic turn-based strategy series, has taken to social media to acknowledge the fact his “life dream” has been fully realised – calling it “the most anticipated, surreal, and exciting day”, while thanking his team and the game’s fans at the same time.

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Rise and Shrine.

It feels like just yesterday that we got the first announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (affectionately called “the Breath of the Wild sequel” at that point) back in 2019’s E3, doesn’t it? No. Of course it doesn’t. To tell you the truth, we have been counting down the days for this one over the past four years, so you’ll have to excuse us for getting a little excited now that we are finally, finally on the home straight.

Of course, a positive to take from this long wait period is that we have come to know Breath of the Wild far better than we might have done if we had received a sequel sooner. For many of us, this version of Hyrule is where we have spent hundreds of hours exploring. We defeated evils, uncovered Shrines, found 900 Korok Seeds (ok, maybe not all of us did that one), and completed a boatload of quests.

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Heigh ho, heigh ho.

Remember when Lemmings was all the rage? It’s hard to imagine that the studio that would go on to develop the monumentally successful Grand Theft Auto franchise made such a quaint little puzzler. Lemmings was a darn good game, spawning multiple add-ons and sequels over the years. It’s honestly a little surprising that the franchise hasn’t yet seen a (re)release on the Switch.

Enter Tin Hearts. Created by ex-Fable developers over at Rogue Sun, Tin Hearts is a heartwarming mix of environmental storytelling and Lemmings-like puzzle gameplay. Indeed, the whole premise of the game requires you to guide a troop of “mischievous tin soldiers’ through increasingly complex paths from their starting position to the end goal.

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Was it delayed too long..?

Back in 2022, with a little more than a month to go until the planned release of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp on Switch, Nintendo delayed the game indefinitely in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Skip ahead to April 2023 and the game is finally out, though it appears that the delay may have had an unfortunate impact on users’ ability to redeem My Nintendo Gold Points. As reported by the Australian website Vooks, an attempt to redeem the points results in an error code that states “You cannot collect My Nintendo points for this software as the expiry date has passed”.

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Featuring footage from the recent trailers.

It’s hard to believe, but we’re now just weeks out from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arriving on the Switch.

Nintendo has been busy airing special trailer presentations in the lead up to this anticipated Switch release, and now it’s seemingly moved onto the marketing side of things – uploading three new commercials to its Japanese YouTube channel.

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